Doug Stone Released From Hospital

Atlantic recording artist Doug Stone was in good spirits Thursday (March 9) as he left the hospital after crashing his ultralite plane earlier this week.

When a reporter asked what was going through his mind in the last few seconds before impact, he jokingly replied, “The windshield.”

Stone, who had been under observation at Northcrest Medical Center in Springfield, Tenn., suffered a cracked rib and ankle, a concussion and a bruised kidney when the plane he was flying went down in a rural area just outside Nashville on Tuesday.

“It just wouldn’t gain any altitude,” Stone said. “Then, the engine quit and I said, ‘Well, this is it. The only thing you can do then is fly it to the ground.'”

The singer said he saw a clearing just past a tree line and tried to aim for it, but the plane didn’t quite make it.

“As I was going down it was kinda like slow motion, and I thought, ‘This is going to hurt,'” Stone said. “When I did hit, I had a concussion, and my shoulder felt like it went halfway through my body.”

Kenny Yates, an area resident, saw the crash and pulled Stone from the wreckage just before it burst into flames.

“He saved my life,” Stone said. “If he hadn’t been there I would have burned to death. I couldn’t get out of the plane because I was dazed and confused. As soon as I got out of the plane, we walked about 50 to 75 yards and it caught on fire.”

The planecrash is not the first run of bad luck the 43-year-old singer has survived in recent years. Stone has already had a heart attack, heart surgery and a mild stroke. Although he enjoys his hobby of flying, he said this week’s accident has grounded him for good.

“I don’t want to quit because it’s a lot of fun, but I’m not going to put my wife through that no more,” Stone explained. “She don’t deserve waiting on me to fall out of the sky.”

Stone plans to resume his touring schedule on March 18 to support his Atlantic Records album, Make Up in Love. And he added he’s already decided on a new hobby.

“I think I’m going to go boating and do a little fishing,” he said. “‘Cause I can swim.”